Print shops are typically medium or large scale facilities capable of supplying printing services to meet a variety of customer demands. For example, print shops are often used to print documents for mass-mailing (e.g., customer bills, advertisements, etc.). Because print shops engage in printing on a scale that is hard to match, their customer base is usually varied. Print shop customers may therefore include both large institutional clients (e.g., credit card companies and banks), and small customers (e.g., small businesses and churches).
Print shops are generally arranged to print incoming jobs from customers in a way that is economical, yet fast. Thus, print shops often include a number of high-volume printers capable of printing incoming jobs quickly and at high quality. Print shops also typically include post-printing devices that are used to process the printed documents of each job (e.g., stackers, staplers, cutters, binders, etc.). Print shops may also provide digital/web publishing, e-mail, or other multimedia services to customers. Because print shops serve a variety of customers, they are often tasked with processing jobs that have varying printing formats, delivery dates, and media requirements. Print shops therefore often use a centralized print server that coordinates activity between printers and other devices of the print shop.
Customers submit their print jobs to print shops in a variety of formats. Along with the print data itself, a print job may include a job ticket describing what the customer wants (e.g., deliverable products, deadlines, e-mail blasts, etc.). For example, a customer may request that the print shop publish the print data at a web page and receive three copies of a printed document made from the print data. Customers may communicate their requests for services to the print shop in different ways. For example, a customer may use a Web-to-Print application that generates an XML or JDF file for the print shop, or a customer may simply telephone a print shop operator to request print shop services.
As jobs are received at a print shop from different customers, each job ticket may include different services requested by a customer. To perform services requested by customers, a print shop performs a set of print shop activities. For example, to print a bound document, a print shop may engage in activities such as “pre-flight” review of print data, printing the document, post-print binding the document, physically shipping the document to the customer, and billing the customer. A customer's requested services can vary with each incoming job, and print shop devices and personnel perform different activities to process incoming jobs having different requested services. However, deciding the specific activities to perform for incoming print data is often a time consuming process, and print shop operators desire ways to more quickly and easily generate an ordered set of discrete activities that a print shop may perform for incoming print jobs to meet the demands of customers.